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The coolest firewire hub ever.

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Courage is a special kind of knowledge; the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. — David Ben

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From Critt, an interview with an influential military theorist who thinks danger is defined by disconnectedness.

As an advisor to the Secretary of Defense for 20 months following the September 11 attacks, Naval War College professor Thomas Barnett helped draw up our government's plans for prosecuting the War on Terror.

His primary insight was to divide the present nations of the world into two categories: a "Functioning Core" that exchanges ideas and goods globally, and a "Non-integrating" group who are isolated from other countries both economically and in the realm of ideas.

Noteworthy:

TAE: What are Iraq's prospects for economic development and integration into the global economy? Is getting its oil industry operational sufficient to achieve that?

BARNETT: No. Historically, countries develop the slowest when they rely on export of raw materials. and over-reliance on one resource makes a country more susceptible to the rise of elites who control the masses by controlling these resources. The Middle East is a place where there is a lot of wealth, but not much development, because the resource wealth is controlled by elites. And these rich elites produce kids with an expectation of hereditary rule who behave badly. That's Osama bin Laden in a nutshell.

This guy is brilliant. Is this long-term, globewide policy really what put us in Iraq? If so, can we handle that challenge? Was Bush hoping that these goals would become so clear and compelling that his initial lies would be seen as a crafty sell rather than as grossly misleading claptrap with no motive more evident than Halliburton profiteering?

Unfortunately I am not terribly optimistic that Bush feels this. And if he does I doubt he can effectively communicate it to the World which hangs on his every word. I'd love to hear what Wes Clark has to say about this…

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In Microsoft Word, when you work on a document with other people, there are many useful hints that indicate when someone has changed something. For example, if someone adds an item to a bulletted list, it might show up in red and underlined. When you hover the mouse over this red text a note pops up that indicates when this line was added and by whom.

I want the same thing for code! For some reason, people take spec documents more seriously—they leave thorough notes, a changelog, they try to adhere to company standards; whereas in code even I will be tempted to do things in a style so poor that no intro CS instructor would let it slide. Perhaps the issue is just that documents are easier to comprehend—if you sit down and read some English text, and have some of the necessary background, there is enough explanation and redundancy in the words that you can quickly get a sense of what's going on. In code, however, things are so detailed and complicated that you have the opposite effect: it's easy to figure out what's happening in the details, but very difficult to abstract from these into an accurate big picture.

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Currently contains some books on Visual Basic that will make me a better worker, and some fiction and non-fiction books I've heard were good.

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This page is utterly hilarious. You have to read it, although you can read it in spurts. A good thing to keep in reserve for times when you need to laugh at how weird people are.

The key to a successful relationship is communication. That's the First Rule. Margret's corollary to the First Rule is the Timing clause. This states that the best time to initiate a complex and lengthy talk about, say, exactly how we should go about a loft conversion is (in reverse order of preference):

• When you see that Mil is playing a game online and is one point away from becoming Champion Of The World, Mil is racing out of the house to catch a train, Mil is in the middle of trying to put out a kitchen fire, etc.
• During the final minutes of a tense thriller Mil has been watching for the past two hours. Ideally at the precise point when someone has begun to say, 'Good Lord! Then the murderer must be…'
• Just at the moment, late at night, when Mil has finally managed to fall asleep.
• In the middle of having sex.

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Yawn… I haven't been fully rested in about three weeks. At the beginning I was coming down with some sickness that my doctor thought was strep. My throat never really hurt that much, but I was wiped out all the time, sleeping 10 hours a night and barely able to keep my eyes open during the day. I went on antibiotics, which appeared to help a whole lot, although in the end the test showed I didn't have strep.

Anyway, since I started on the antibiotics I have been restored to a mostly normal sleep schedule, that is, 7-8 hours a night. But still there is a palpable sleep deficit in me. Because of errands this weekend I didn't get to sleep in, so perhaps I should try going to sleep really early (9:30? 10?). Also I should make sure to go to bed rather than falling asleep with a book or TV show in the La-z-boy: I've been doing this a bunch lately and I don't think it results in good sleep.

The Spaniards have it right. My most productive times are morning and after 9pm. Afternoons should be for napping. Maybe I should move to Spain. Maybe I should strive for a life where I have enough control over my schedule to take afternoon siestas.

One last possible explanation that my lethargy is due to laziness. Only because my group at work takes walks every day after lunch am I not 100% sedentary. I think tonight I need to order myself a pair of rollers and work 30 minutes of biking into my schedule every day. Perhaps first thing in the morning, or perhaps right after work. The difficult thing with exercise is that when I start it up after not doing any for over a week or so it makes me very tired. But if I can commit to a regular pattern it will definitely improve my overall health and energy level.

Sorry this post is so rambly… I'm sleepy.

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Welcome to the Tech Bloom.

The conventional wisdom, during the Tech Boom, was that what drove innovation was the lure of giant piles of cash. That idea now rubs shoulders with the Berlin Wall. What makes creative people tingle are interesting problems, the chance to impress their friends and caffeine. Freed from the pursuit of paper millions, geeks are doing what geeks, by nature, really want to be doing: making cool stuff.